“I agree, lady,” Bascot said. “It is a task that must be undertaken very carefully and not in a confrontational manner.”
“Ernulf may be able to help,” Nicolaa said musingly. “He was born in Lincoln and knows most of the townsfolk. He also has a prodigious memory. It is quite possible he will know the details we seek.”
Bascot nodded. “He has helped me before with his knowledge. I shall speak to him directly. If there are any of whom he is not certain, we can look more closely into their background.”
Alinor now leaned forward with a suggestion of her own. “It might be helpful if one of us had another word with Mistress Adgate,” she said. “It is possible that Tercel, during his trysts with her, may have asked about, or mentioned, Adgate’s first wife, or one of the other women at the feast, especially if he was trying to garner information about a particular individual. If he did, it might point our way more quickly.”
As the others considered her proposal, Alinor added, “I would be more than willing to interview her, Aunt, and…” She paused and gave her cousin a measuring glance. “… perhaps it might be just as well if Richard were present. The furrier’s wife appears receptive to a handsome face and figure; mayhap his company will prove an aid to her memory.”
Alinor’s jocular remark lifted, if only by a fraction, the gloom that had spread over them all since the body had been found. Although the castellan’s handsome son was to be wed in a few months time, Richard had long had the reputation of being a womanizer and, as his mother and cousin were only too well aware, was a consistently successful one.
“I agree with Alinor’s suggestion, Mother,” Richard proclaimed and then added with mock seriousness, “and, in the hope that my capabilities will fulfill her high expectations, will gladly give her any assistance she requires in her interview with Mistress Adgate.”
“I am quite certain your charm will not fail me, Cousin,” Alinor replied dryly, “for if she should prove impervious to it, she will be the first woman who has ever done so.”
After the company left to pursue their various lines of enquiry and Stephen Wharton went to make arrangements for his return to Stamford the next day, Nicolaa was left alone in the solar. After a few moments’ reflection, she sent a servant to summon her secretary and went to her private chamber to await his arrival. Pouring herself a cup of cider, she paced the length of the room with the goblet in her hand, pondering whether or not to apprise King John of the possibility that his deceased brother might have spawned another bastard son. John, since his coronation, had been plagued by the rebellious actions of a legitimate nephew, Arthur of Brittany, the posthumous son of another Plantagenet brother, Geoffrey. Many of the king’s subjects felt that Arthur should have been given the crown instead of John, and the dissention had been a thorn in his side for some time, especially since Philip, the king of France, had espoused Arthur’s cause and encouraged him to take up arms against his royal uncle. Only last year, Arthur had attempted to seize his grandmother, the widowed Queen Eleanor, from her castle at Mirabeau and, had John not ridden valiantly to his mother’s rescue, would have held Eleanor as a hostage against his claim for the English crown. To advise the king that he may have had yet another close relative, albeit an illegitimate one, and that he had been murdered, might not be welcome news to John, but given the monarch’s suspicious nature, may be the most advisable course of action.
Nicolaa had always been open and honest with the king and she knew that he had never doubted her loyalty. But her husband, Gerard, on the other hand, was not viewed in such a favourable light. Many years ago, while Lionheart was on the throne, Gerard had formed an alliance with John in an act of rebellion against the monarch but, once the brief insurgence was over, their reluctant friendship had turned rancorous. If she did not apprise John of this latest development and he heard of it from another source, it could be that he would view the matter as an aborted attempt at subversion by Gerard. She decided that candour, as it had always been, would be prudent, and when her secretary entered the chamber a few moments later, told him that she wished to dictate a letter that was to be despatched to the monarch at his castle in Falaise, Normandy, where Arthur was being held prisoner. After that, she told him, she would also compose one for him to send to Gerard in London. Just in case there were any repercussions from the king, it was best that her husband be forewarned.
Sixteen
In the scriptorium, it was almost time for the evening meal by the time Gianni had finished transcribing the notes he had taken during the morning’s discussion between Nicolaa and the others. He had one more task to finish before he could go down to the hall and partake of some food; that of copying out the relevant passages in the letter penned to Stephen Wharton by his brother. Since Wharton intended to begin his journey back to Stamford the next morning, the copying had to be done by the end of the day so that the letter could be returned to the knight before he left Lincoln. Lambert, the other clerk in the scriptorium, offered to bring Gianni some refreshment from the hall while he completed the task and the lad enthusiastically nodded his head. He had barely had time to snatch more than a crust of bread and a small chunk of cold meat at the midday meal and his stomach was growling with hunger.
Unrolling the long sheet of parchment, he read through the opening paragraphs detailing various bequests to servants and disposal of property until he found the portion that dealt with Aubrey Tercel. Anchoring the letter on his lectern with two small blocks of wood, he set to work. He had already noted that the letter, even though in a scholarly hand, was informally worded and guessed that, as Lionel Wharton had been about to embark on crusade, he had dictated it in haste to a priest or cleric. The passage about Tercel had been taken down in a similar fashion; the sentences overlong and often repetitive. When he came to the part that dealt with the woman who had been his mother, it was written in the same rambling manner and Gianni had to stop and read it twice to ensure the meaning. After he had finished, he laid aside his quill and pondered on the fact that there was a slight ambiguity in the words.
When Lambert returned with a platter laden with a bowl of rabbit pottage, half of a small loaf of oat bread and two cups of ale, Gianni showed the relevant portion to him and, through the sign language that Lambert had taken the pains to learn so he and his young colleague could communicate, asked his opinion as to the precise meaning of the passage.
Lambert laid the platter down and read through the document as Gianni hungrily wolfed down the stew and bread. When the older clerk had finished, he rubbed a finger along his prominent jaw and said, “I see what you mean, Gianni. The way this is written-‘The woman who became enceinte was in Winchester’-could mean that she lived in the town, which is the way Stephen Wharton construed it but, conversely, it might just as well signify that she merely happened to be in the town at the time she lay with her lover. It does not necessarily indicate that she resided there.”
Lambert’s dark eyes lit up with appreciation. “You have done well to spot that, Gianni,” he said. “I think it might be worthwhile to bring it to Lady Nicolaa’s attention.”
Later that evening, Simon and Clarice Adgate sat in the furrier’s hall, the meal they had been served hardly touched. Uppermost in Clarice’s mind was the message that had been brought earlier that day by one of Nicolaa de la Haye’s men-at-arms, requesting her presence at the castle early the next morning.